


I have a dream

by Anonymous



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Banned Together Bingo, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Racism, Interracial Relationship, Non-Consensual Body Modification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25677319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The first time Allison realized she was black she was 12 years old.  She had known before that she was a different color than her siblings, but this is the first time that she understood that this meant something to other people.  This is how that simple fact affected her life.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves/Patrick
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41
Collections: Anonymous Fics, Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020





	I have a dream

The first time Allison realized she was black she was 12 years old. She had of course always realized that she did not have the same skin color as all of her siblings, but that had never mattered in the academy. It was 100% about ability and while Luther and Diego had always competed for the title of “best”, in some ways she had always had it. She had better control over her powers than any of her siblings, and really had she been a boy she probably would have been able to out fight them. As it was, she could hold her own way better than her brothers Klaus and Ben. 

It was only after they came out the world as superheroes she began to realize that she was different. She had mistakenly interpreted it as sexism, she was after all the only girl on the team. With Ben’s shyness and Diego’s stutter, combined with Luther being number one, and Klaus’s inability to shut up it took her a while to realize that the fact she was rarely interviewed waist that she was a girl, it was that she wasn’t white.

It was never much of a problem for her, she heard a rumor that people didn’t care. For every audition she heard a rumor that they were considering her for the role, even when she walked into a room full of straight haired blond girls as the competition. It didn't always work though, sometimes the person she was rumoring was the person in charge of the movie, but they weren't funding it. And it was surprisingly easier to get a serious job, in a thriller or sci-fi than it was for a lower budget rom-com. It actually took her years to figure out what the problem was. There was always a complaint that there wasn’t a good match for her. It wasn't that they didn't want to cast her, there just wasn't anyone that they thought she would play well off of, that would also play off the idea they had in mind for the ‘other woman’.

It wasn’t until she walked into a premiere in the south with Patrick on her arm and had people actually boo her that she picked up on it. The problem wasn’t that they couldn't find an actor, it was was they couldn't find one that was the right color. Micenegation wasn't a word she was familiar with then, but was now. And it took more rumors than she would like to admit to get the storm of showing up on the red carpet with a white guy to blow over. And two that still made her ashamed to think about, to convince Patrick that she was better off going to premieres without him.  
She had even, for a little while, considered backing out of the engagement all together. She didn’t though, because of all the men she had dated, Patrick was the best of the lot. The rumors after Claire's birth were even worse. The teachers, parents, and even other kids heard a rumor that they didn't notice that Claire’s mom was famous, or that her parents were anything but ordinary. It was horrible, but it worked, up until the day it didn’t. Until the day Patrick caught her putting Claire to bed, and came to questions everything about their relationship.

It would have been okay, she thought, had she not hesitated when he asked her the important question. Did you ever rumor me? She had, just those two times for the premiere, she tried to explain, but he wouldn’t have it. He didn’t understand, thought she was ashamed of him. That she was lying about it only being twice, after all how would he know. Those rumors were the beginning of the end of her relationship, her family, her life as she knew it.  
She walked back into the Umbrella Academy 11 years after she walked out, with the only difference being that know she had money. That was it, she didn’t have a home, or a family. She wasn’t even able to talk to her daughter on the phone, and she wasn’t sure if once she jumped through all the hoops the courts put forward she would even get any kind of custody. 

The worst part is she couldn’t even blame them. What she did was horrible. It seemed okay at the time, but the evaluations of Claire by a developmental therapist had said there may be irreversible damage. Claire had no emotional control, couldn’t self soothe, her little feet damaged from walking too much too early, her bladder scarred by waiting too long to pee, never having an accident. That was what they could see now, but there might be other things later, no one knew what the long term effects of being rumored were on a child, she could have problems with memory, concentration, control later in life. Allison had tried so hard to make her perfect that she ruined her, and what she didn’t admit to Luther, to Vanya, when she told them about longing to see Claire is that at the same time she dreaded it. Seeing the consequences of her actions on her daughter, it was almost a relief to be told no.

**Author's Note:**

> I went with the non-consensual body modification tag based on the effect of Allison's rumors on Claire


End file.
